If you regularly find yourself wishing you could erase the constant noise of traffic, cell phones, music, TVs, car alarms, sirens, construction work, and all those other distracting noises of our modern world, and just find a nice, quiet place to sit and think and decompress, then you’ll find Prochnik’s latest book of interest. The author lives in Brooklyn, so he knows a thing or two about the unwelcome sounds of big city life, and this book chronicles his journey to discover just what all this noise does to us, physically and psychologically, and what, if anything, we can do to combat it, or at least learn to better cope with it.
Scientists and doctors of many stripes, religious ascetics, and noise pollution activists weigh in on the dangers of modern noise levels, the latest soundproofing designs and sound measuring devices, and the overall advantages of quietness and silence. Did you know that, even after years of experiencing police sirens driving past several times a day, for instance, our eyes will still dilate and our blood pressure will go up, even if we sit quietly and the noise of the siren only barely registers? Did you realize that headphones are responsible for about 10% of all traffic accidents—because those wearing the headphones don’t hear oncoming traffic and drivers will slam on their brakes to avoid hitting them, creating the perfect opportunity to be rear-ended? Well, if you didn’t, there’s much, much more to learn about the dangers of noise, and Prochnik shares them all along the way.
On the other side of the coin, however, he also spends time with professional “boom car” drivers. Some of them compete to see whose speakers will register the highest dB levels for the longest amount of time. Prochnik rides along with them, interviews them, and their stories are interesting, even if they will probably fail to move anyone reading this book over to their lifestyle. There are also sound designers, who create “soundscapes” in shopping areas and restaurants that subconsciously encourage people to spend more or less time in a place and spend more money there as well. They cite studies that show, for example, that bars blaring music too loudly to talk over will make more money than quiet ones because people drink more, and drink more quickly, when they don’t waste all that time talking to one another. They also clear out sooner, paving the way for someone new to sit down and start drinking.
There are revelations to be found in each of his adventures, whether walking in the famed Japanese gardens of Portland, the school for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., with the boom car enthusiasts of Tampa, the architects and sound proofers of Copenhagen, or the evolutionary neuroscientists who are discovering how our earless, early mammalian ancestors “heard” via vibrations that affected tiny bones in their jaws that would later migrate and become even more sensitive to vibration and eventually develop into modern ears. All of these tales are interesting and thought provoking, although, ultimately, they are frustrating.
As his research shows, there have always been concerns about noise levels in industrial cities, and many an anti-noise society has been formed and many a piece of legislation passed to endeavor to tamper the worst of the noise and create a quieter, more peaceful environment. But further studies show that noise levels continue to go up, despite these earnest efforts, and our hearing and overall health continue to decline as a result of it. In other words, noise pollution seems to be here to stay, and ultimately all we are left to glean from Prochnik’s work is that the best we can do for our own physical and mental health is to steal away as often as we can to a cathedral, quiet reading room, waterfall or park, as a temporary, but much needed and much valued, respite.
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